One chart said sixteen hours, twenty-six
Minutes, another read sixteen hours
Eighteen minutes. Suppose it all depends
On how one measures the angle of light.
A long stretch of daylight, in any case:
Time to celebrate and consider the slow
Turn back toward more night. Little pebble,
So much vaster than us, vaster to us
Than we are to the bacteria that occupy
And harvest us, the only world we've ever
Known, where most of the sea floor alone
Is still unvisited, barely robotically explored,
And what's that even but the underside
Of a nearly two-dimensional film of water
Compared to the oblong volume of the rock
Itself, and all of this together is a pinprick
Of faintly reflected light wobbling around
One of the thousands of millions of infernos.
Body and self sat chatting with a local man
Who gets depressed each year at summer
Solstice because the light will not grow
Longer, and the man told us he planned
To drive down to Spokane next week
And visit a welding supply shop and price
Canisters of nitrogen because he and his
Partner had decided that once they became
Too old to keep living in the dark woods
Where they grow their own food and tap
A mountain stream for water and cut
Their own firewood all summer for winter,
They would like to go together quietly rather
Than molder miserably in assisted living
In town. All living is assisted, we whispered,
Self to body, body to self, under the breath.
What was it we were preparing to celebrate
Again at the hour called the sunset tonight?
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